


The Fisherman's Daughter

by EmeryldLuk



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Ancient Greece, Arranged Marriage, Bullying, Buried Alive, Demigods, Feminism, Gen, Original Character(s), domestic abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24797752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeryldLuk/pseuds/EmeryldLuk
Summary: Lilianah, unknown daughter of Hades, discovers her Godly Powers after running away from home to protest being married off.
Kudos: 2





	The Fisherman's Daughter

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for Domestic and Physical Abuse mentioned.

"Lilianah!"

A woman called over the tumbling craggy coast. A breeze whistled past, stirring up ocean spray. The woman bundled her silky black hair out of her face and began to climb through the rocks, careful not to let her faded green chiton catch on any sharp edges.

"Lilianah!"

A child sat at the lowest point, long black hair hanging down her back and wrapped in plain white. Her legs hung in the waves that dampened the hem. She tossed a pebble out into the water.

"Lilianah!"

The woman reached the peak and spotted the child. She groaned and searched for a safe way down. The rocks seemed so treacherous though she could remember scaling these very rocks as a child.

"Lilianah!"

The child looked up, face stony and gray eyes hard. The woman folded her arms.

"Lilianah, time to go home."

The child turned and chucked another rock as hard as she could at the water. The pebble skipped three times over the waves before sinking out of sight. The woman waited, patient and rightfully so. The child got up and climbed easily up to her.

"What are you even doing out here?"

Lilianah took the woman's hand. "They were calling me names, Mother: worthless and bastard."

"Ignore them. You make your own worth, no matter what life throws at you." Maria carefully knelt to fix her daughter's hair. "There is so much ahead of you."

Lilianah pulled away from the fussing fingers. "There is nothing for me. I'll die, blind, old, and pathetic."

Maria pulled Lilianah's face towards her. "Enough of that. I did not give birth to a weakling. You are strong willed and adventurous like your father. Your real father, not that scoundrel I married."

"I'll believe that when I see it," Lilianah muttered under her breath. Maria sighed, but let it go. She had heard this particular argument come and go so many times already that it was pointless to repeat. She straightened, took Lilianah's hand once more and led the way back to the path.

They lived in a small fishing village nestled between two rocky bluffs. A dock sat over the lowest portion of the shoreline where the waves covered the rocks all but at low tide. The houses sat close together in the valley, facing inward.

There was little but a small bundle of dried flowers hanging on the door to identify their home by. Maria opened the door and ushered the girl inside with a nervous glance around. The woman living next door frowned for a moment from her own doorway before sharply shutting the door.

Lilianah sat down to unlace her sandals and then walked to the firepit where the stew hung in a pot over the coals. She lifted the lid and gave it a stir with the ladle. She could tell the broth was bubbling, but the chunks of carrots and beets seemed to blend with the salted beef. She scowled and removed the ladle.

"I can't even tell if the stew is done," she whined. Lilianah pulled out a chair at the table. "I can't tell the difference between different types of cloth. I can't catch fish. I'm horrible at sweeping. I miss spots when cleaning. The only thing I can do is gut a fish and tie a knot."

Maria bent down and kissed her daughter's head. "Time will help. You're only twelve."

"It's old enough to be sold off as a wife," Lilianah muttered darkly. Maria had nothing to say. She took the ladle and tended to the stew, determining that it still needed time.

Lilianah scowled at the table, angry at nothing in particular and wondering about the knife that had been left out. She could feel something wrong with it, though she couldn't say how. She picked up the knife, feeling the heft of the thick chopping blade. She knew in her bones that it was made of bronze. Of course she already knew that. All of their cooking utensils were made of bronze. But this feeling was different. Like there was something screaming at her.

The wrongness pulled at her, drawing her fingers to a spot near the point. The metal felt cold and rough.

The door opened, letting in a bracing burst of salty air and an old man with a walking stick. Lilianah dropped the knife to cry gleefully, "Granpa."

"My little Lili," He greeted, setting aside his walking stick. "Maria, we have guests."

In walked a man and his son. Maria put aside the ladle and moved to accommodate the two, offering wine to the man. Lilianah sank back into her chair, pouting because she knew the boy.

"Dinner will be ready soon," Maria said. "Will Phoebe be joining us as well?"

"No," the man answered. "She is getting things ready for the night."

"A pity then. Please, make yourselves comfortable."

The boy sat in the chair across from Lilianah, hands folded in his lap. His arrogant attitude from earlier that day had vanished, leaving behind a distinct nervousness. His father watched them with a gloating kind of pride.

"Lilianah," the boy began.

"Save it, Mateo," she growled.

"Okay," he surrendered. His father became upset and turned to her grandfather.

"Do you allow your women to talk back to men? I never imagined your late wife would have raised such willful daughters."

Her grandfather was busy working the kinks out of his knees. He shot a disapproving look at Lilianah. "I admit I have not been terribly good at teaching her. Even so, she is a smart girl and will learn quickly, I think, if given a more normal environment."

"Yes, Phoebe would be happy to teach her the proper manner to speak to her betters."

Worried about the scowl on Lilianah's face, Maria put her hands on the girl's shoulders. "What is this about?" she asked.

"Bedros," the old man gestured to their guest, "has agreed to take Lilianah into his family as a future wife for Mateo. They will be old enough to marry in a few years and it will be good for Lilianah to get used to living with others. You're too easy on her."

"I'm giving her time to adjust. Going blind should not be a life sentence."

"Well, it is. She's not going to suddenly get better at things. We're lucky Bedros is even willing to take her on."

"We're lucky to have her. Everyone knows Triton would have killed her if not for me. You certainly never did anything to stop him," Maria railed.

"You shouldn't have been running around at night with strangers in the first place," he said. "It would have been fine if you'd done all that before the marriage, not after."

"You pushed that marriage on me, same as you're doing to her!"

"It was a good match! You agreed to it."

"Only because if I said no, you'd have taken it out on me!"

A great clang echoed in the small space as the cooking pot dented itself and spill hot stew over the fire and hearth. Maria shrieked in alarm and rushed to save what she could.

Bedros overcame his shock at the exchange and became cool and prideful. He looked down his nose at Lilianah as she tried to hide on the chair with her hands over her ears. "I'll have none of that attitude in my house," he told her. "A good woman knows not to talk back to her betters."

Lilianah didn't know what to say, but she knew she hated every bit of it. She lowered her hands.

"No."

"Excuse me?" Bedros drew him up, trying to loom over her. She was surprised to find he did not feel intimidating.

"I said no. You don't scare me and I won't marry Mateo. All he does is hurt me. Like my father did."

"You don't have a choice in the matter. Tomorrow you'll move into my house and-"

"I said no and you can't make me!" Lilianah jumped off her chair and ran out of the house. She ran up the hills to the east, ignoring the calls of her mother and grandfather.

Lilianah slowed down once she reached the crest where the trees began. The sun was beginning to touch the horizon, throwing long shadows over the dry ground. She took a look around and strode on, finding her way from tree to tree.

It was completely dark by the time she came out of the trees. The ground rose sharply and then ended in a steep decline down to the edge of the ocean. Lilianah climbed down on hands and knees to wash dirt from her face.

The splash of the water on the stones calmed her as it always did. She loved the smell of the salt and the crash of water on rock. Feeling less like her life was over, she crawled over the boulders to find a safe niche she could curl up in.

Climbing over one large sloped boulder, she found a tunnel in the cliff. The dirt overhead had eroded and the water dug its way into the sandstone and granite below. With the low tide, only a trickle of water ran down the underground path with every wave. Lilianah ducked inside and followed it upwards.

Pulling herself up a couple of natural shelves, Lilianah found herself in a large, dry cavern. Air came in from the ocean and also from a few cracks in the walls. It was warm and the tide didn't seem to come up into the cavern based on the coolness of the rock floor.

Choosing the smoothest corner, Lilianah hugged herself tight and tried to sleep.

"Stupid brat," someone snapped. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping the noise would go away, but the voice only got louder.

"Lousy, Worthless, Stinking Bastard. How dare you? If it weren't for you, everything would be great!"

Lilianah jolted up, convinced she was stuck in a nightmare, but her vision remained blurry. The voice continued, belting insults and injury. A figure in white and gray stood in the middle of the cavern, shouting in the familiar tone of her dead father. She covered her ears and yelled.

"Leave me alone!"

The figure came closer, but made no noise when it walked.

"Go away," she cried, "Leave me alone."

"You're a waste of space," the figure bellowed, raising a fist over its head. "I should have thrown you in the ocean the instant I knew. Saved us all a lot of shame."

"You're not real," Lilianah intoned to herself. "You're dead and not real."

"Look at me when I'm talking!"

"No, You can't be here! You're dead."

The figure rushed towards her. Screaming, she scampered out of her corner. It followed her, cursing her.

"Go Away," she yelled, pushing at the figure as it closed in. Her hands touched air and nothing else. She fell backward in surprise as the ground began to shake. The cracks in the walls spread, dropping chunks of granite, causing dirt and sand to filter through the growing crevises.

Lilianah ran from the crumbling ceiling, trapped in the dark cavern as everything collapsed. She shielded herself, but nothing hit her. Crouched in the side, the rocks and dirt fell everywhere except where she was.

The good news was that the strange figure that couldn't have been real was gone. The bad news was that she was now trapped underground in a collapsed cave. Lilianah sat down and tried not to cry.

After sitting there, making a mess of her face, she began pulling at the rocks. A few came easily, but most refused to budge. She kept trying, digging into the loose dirt and sand.

She cleared some space around a larger chunk of granite and pushed and pulled at it. She set her shoulder to its side and heaved as hard as she could. With a groan, it rolled out of the way. A tingling sensation ran down her arms. She had felt that somehow. Placing her hands on the wall of dirt, she could tell the whole cavern had crumbled.

Lilianah lifted her shaking hands and rested them on the only solid wall nearby. It felt full of cracks as if about to break, but unable to. She pushed at it a little.

The rock wall crunched, crumbling a little, but punching backwards in a small hole as big as her hand. Gleeful, Lilianah pushed harder and the rocks moved further, widening the hole so she could climb in.

In that manner, Lilianah dug through the earth, forcing the wall of rock before her until it broke into open air.

Gasping, she crawled out and sat on top of the cliff. The sky was still dark, but the subtle hue of blue tinted the black.

"Did I do that?" she wondered, looking down at her hands. She could still feel all the rocks beneath her. She could even feel them under the water. A thought crept up out of the depths.

Standing, she reached out both with mind and hands and pulled at the ocean floor. She felt a strain, a weight pressing back, and pulled harder. With a feeling like pulling a fish out of the water, the weight fell away and a large chunk of limestone lifted out of the waves.

Victorious, she lost hold and the boulder splashed back out of sight. She couldn't help but giggle at the thought of her grandfather's face. She wasn't useless after all.

She reached the village shortly after dawn broke and her mother raced out to hug her. She tried unsuccessfully to share her news as Maria checked her over for injuries under the dirt.

"Mother, I'm fine," Lilianah pushed her mother's worrying hands away. "I'm not hurt, only dirty."

"You could have been," Maria insisted. "You were missing all night. I thought my heart would break."

"Mother."

"And what about everyone else. We all care about you." Maria rubbed at the dirt on Lilianah's face.

"Finally," Bedros exclaimed. "The wayward girl returns. Has she learned her lesson? Will she be obedient?"

Maria said over her shoulder, "Yes, Bedros, she will-"

"No, I won't," Lilianah interrupted. "I won't marry Mateo. I won't live with him. I won't settle for him or anyone else."

"Lilianah," Maria gasped.

"And you can't make me."

Bedros looked ready to beat her. "Young lady," he threatened.

"I said no, and I meant it." Lilianah reached out, feeling a slab of granite under the village and pulled. It lifted far easier than the one under the ocean, punching up out of the dirt like a massive mountain, shoving houses out of the way, and breaking apart the pathway. People screamed as they ran to get out of the way.

"Oops," she said.

Maria hugged her tight, staring in awe at the sight. Bedros stood stock still as urine dripped down his leg.

"How- how?" he uttered uncertainly.

Stumbling out of their home with his walking stick, Lilianah's grandfather made his way over to them. "What in the name of Poseidon just happened? Why is there a mountain in the middle of the village?"

Beaming, Maria held on tight to Lilianah. "She's the daughter of the Gods is what, Father. She's amazing and I'll never let you do what you want with her."

"Deal's off anyway," Bedros declared, clearly terrified, but trying to remain composed. "No one will want a monster like her for a wife."

Her grandfather scowled. "That's my granddaughter you're talking about Bedros. Watch your tongue." He gazed down on Lilianah and sighed. "In any case, you can't stay here. You need to consult the Gods. I'll see if we can't get you someone to take you to Athens."


End file.
